Another good season for all wild bird driven guineafowl and francolin shooting coming up? Yes, most likely .….

The 2004/2005 southern African rainy season (Nov-March) during which our guineafowl, spurfowl and francolin breed, is now almost over and the first sightings of young birds have been reported from several of our estates in South Africa and Zambia. Botswana, on the other hand, is very dry.

It appears that there have been two, spaced well apart, nesting periods used by the guineafowl.  The result is that we already have flying young in some areas whilst, in others, the chicks are  still “downy”. The spurfowl and francolin, on the other hand, have done rather well out of the late rains and show promise for further good numbers of chicks appearing in the months ahead.

Our 3 species of sandgrouse are scattered about all over the sub continent at this time (which is actually where they should be!), with just the Spotted (Burchell’s) Sandgrouse putting in an early (for them) breeding in January. We expect good concentrations of Namaqua, in particular, on several of our estates by the end of May.

There have been many reports of Spurwinged and Egyptian Geese breeding, particularly in or near fields of irrigated wheat, whilst the ducks have only now begun to nest. The recent late rains have provided both the aquatic and vegetated veld conditions (grass growth) that they require for nesting. So, still a few weeks too early to tell how well they have done this season.